Animals Divine - 13 Death - Sedna

Ivy Rhiannon

Picture: http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/dd443/TrinityQueen/8-Death-Sedna.jpg

First Impression: This card is a hard one to see. I guess death is for most people. However there is a helplessness here, a betrayal in the card as if this poor girl is crying up to the heavens for help barely a breath in her lung and she receives nothing but silence.


Description: We see a young woman floating down into the depths of the ocean surrounded by seals and otters.

Gender: Feminine

Colors: Pale Blues, Indigo, Golden Yellow, Grey, White, & Black.

Senses: I feel pain choking and heavy in my chest. The water is cold, dark and frightening. I can sense animals around me swooshing through the black waters. I can taste the salty water in my throat.

Symbols: Sedna, Owl, Seals, Otters, Water, Struggle


Story [Intuitive]: I sink deep into the dark chilly waters. I feel the tears burning in my throat salty like the sea. I am reaching upwards towards the heavens, "Help me please!!!" I cry out in my mind unable to scream in the water without losing the precious air in my lungs. They burn, begging me to take in the fresh air. I flail about but fail to find the strength to struggle anymore. Defeat sits heavy on my body as I sink helpless to change my untimely fate. Why?! I cry letting out the last breath with a rush of bubbles that float up my face and away from me. This liquid tomb is cold, as cold as I have ever known. I feel a fuzziness in my mind that wanes the pain, blurs the thoughts, and lessens the burden of life. I am floating timeless within the dark womb of the sea. There is nothing...sweet nothing now. A bump stirs my slumber, then another and I feel a rush of movement by my side. I open my eyes and suddenly I can see! There in the waters is a playful creature cocking its head at me. It rolls on its side flapping its fins and pointing with its long nose in the direction of a nearby cave. I try to remember how I got here but there is only silence. So I go with the animal, hoping it will lead me to the answers and knowing only that I am no longer the girl I used to be.

My Experience with Death: Who has not known death? It is inescapable, unexplainable last act of our lives. I have lost loved ones and I have been the Goddess in her black robes severing the cords that bound me. What lives must die, what begins must end, but there is also transformation as one turns into another. The cycle starts again...


Astrological Reference: Zodiac - Scorpio

Cultural Reference: In Inuit mythology, Sedna is the goddess of the sea and marine animals such as seals. A creation myth, the story of Sedna shows how she came to rule over the Inuit underworld. In one of the many versions of this legend, Sedna is a beautiful maiden who rejects marriage proposals from the hunters of her village. When an unknown hunter appears, Sedna's father agrees to give her to him as wife in return for fish. Sedna's father gives Sedna a sleeping potion and gives her to the hunter who takes her to a large nest on a cliff, revealing to her his true form, a great raven. She wakes surrounded by birds. Her father attempts to rescue her but, her husband becomes angry and calls to the ocean and causing a great storm. In desperation, Sedna's father throws her into the raging sea to appease the water spirit. Sedna attempts to cling to the kayak but her father grabs a little axe and chops off her fingers. Her fingers become the first seals and she becomes a mighty sea goddess. When she is angered someone is sent to wash her hair, (which she is unable to do herself without hands) after which she releases the animals to the hunters. [source Wikipedia]

Elemental Reference: Water

Numerology Reference: (1 + 3 = 4) 4 - Security, Stability, Foundation, Focus


Keywords: Helplessness, Struggle, Unknown, Transformation, Death

Possible Meanings: Feeling helpless to fight a situation, Holding on to an old attachment (way of life, habit, person, lifestyle), Fear to face a situation with unknown or life changing consequences, Death of a person or attachment.

Reversed: Finding the wisdom to let things go, Transformation of self, Receiving hidden guidance, Being free to move on.

Quote: "Life is eternal, love is immortal, and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." ~Rossiter Worthington Raymond
 

divinegoddess

First Impression: I can definitely see that she’s being transferred, going through a rebirth.

Symbols*: Drownign symbolizes the dissolving of one conscious state into another. The water epitomizes the unconscious state of being. As we submerge into the deep – meditative place within the psyche – we are conncecting with our inner being and the resource of collective materials. The sea life represents varioud archetypes: the seals are powerful and individual and the whales are spiritual, worldly creatures that can serve as omniscient guides. The owl in the aboveworld is the bird of wisdom. It represents darknes and it knows that the advent of wisdom evolves from the death of old ideas in favor of new perspectives. Through new experiences and an open mind we have the opportunity to become more worldly and wise.

Description*: Sedna was the supreme deity of the undersea world, who was both feared and revered by the Inuit peoples of the Arctic region. She commanded all sea life and determined how many of her animals would be relinquished for mortal consumption. She was once a mortal maiden whose renowned beauty hired many a pontential suitor to seek her hand in marriage. One day a handsome bird-man, dressed in the finest of parkas, enchanted her with his song. She fled with im on his kayak but soon learned that her new bird-man husband had deceived her. His nest was made from smelly fish skins and her diet consisted of remnants of raw sea fish. Sedna began to wither under such dreadful circumstances and when her father came to visit her during the spring thaw, he was appalled by what he found. In a fit of rage, he killed the bird-man and fled with his daughter into calm waters, but soon the bird folk found their dead comrade and recognized the perpetrators of the murder. They pursued the mortals with a vengeance and stirred the sea waters with beating wings. The deadly waves began to overtake the small kayak they were escaping in. Sedna’s father became frightened. In a panic, he tossed his daughter into the icy waves in the hopes of placating the angered spirit. Sedna grabbed the side of the boat, but her deranged father took out his ax and chopped at his daughter’s fingers. As her fingers fell into the icy waters, they metamorphosed into whales, seals, and other sea creatures, and Sedna’s mortal being became a sea spirit. Sedna assumed an undersea throne in her new domain, called Andluven, and here her embittered spirit presided over the sea mammals. The shamans would travel to her underwater realm and comb her hair as a means of appeasing the goddess so she would send seals to the hunters.


Keywords: Transformation, rebirth, renewal, new beginnings.

Possible Meanings: It is important to remember that change and new opportunities may only come about with the death of old ideals and situations. You may mourn aspects of your former life and be hesitant to embrace new opportunities. But being afraid to let go of a complacent or stagnating situation for fear of failure can lead to endless frustration and despair. Allow yourself to transform and flourish in the face of great changes.

Senses: I feel her being liberated from her previous pain. It’s a beautiful transformation to go through but a very intense transformation. The animals underwater, and an owl representing widoms and growth, have gathered around her to support her and be there for her. She feels like a completely different person once it’s over. It’s a shame I can’t stay there for that long, as I must continue my journey.

Thoughts/Points to Ponder: The starfish is telling me something, but I can’t figure out what it is.